How Camp Rock Should Have Ended
by littlespock
Summary: Final Jam turns into a nightmare as Camp Rock receives an unexpected visitor.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock nor do I ever wish to. It is, in my opinion, a genital wart on the industry of television films.

If you'll pardon the pun, Tess Tyler was not a happy camper. Well, less happy than her usual unhappy self. In fact, Tess Tyler was rarely, if ever, happy at all. The only times she was truly happy was when she spent time with her mother and when she made other girls cry by insulting their fashion sense or just calling them an ugly heifer.

But right now, Tess Tyler was not with her mother and she was not making people cry, so she was not happy. She was backstage at Final Jam, readying Peggy, Ella, and herself for their, rather _her_, big number in which she would win Shane Grey's love and the chance to record with Connect Three. Tess was also excited that she'd finally have her mother's complete attention for once, but at the moment her anger out weighed her enthusiasm.

"Honestly, guys, are you stupid or is tonight's dinner finally working it's way into your lower intestine because these steps are not that hard!" Well, she wasn't making people cry _yet_. "I have worked too hard for too long to have my night ruined by two incompetent back up dancers who don't know a simple step, pivot, step, pivot, shake, shake, shake routine. This is not amateur night! This is serious!" Tess stomped a perfectly manicured foot and puffed up her chest until she took on the appearance of a male chimpanzee.

Ella, never wanting to displease anyone, least of all Tess as she knew what happened when Tess got so red faced no one could see her blush, made an attempt at sticking up for herself and Peggy. "We did it right!" she said, nervously fumbling with the belt of her satin robe.

"No, you didn't; you never do!" Tess shot back, "You guys may be used to losing, but not me! I'm tired of pickin' up the slack!" If there had ever been a moment when Tess desired to snap her fingers in the shape of a triangle, it was now. She resisted the urge, however, for fear it'd make her look less threatening.

At that same moment Tess was contemplating making an ass out of herself, Peggy, who up until this point had known place and never crossed it, snapped just a bit on the inside. Perhaps it was all the verbal abuse she received from someone she had believed was her friend, perhaps her ridiculous silk robe began chaffing, or maybe it was, in fact, her dinner working it's way into her GI tract. Whatever the reason, her robe or the abuse, Peggy blew up at the girl she had been secretly referring to as Mussolini for the past week .

"Stop telling us what to do! You're the on who's ruining everything," Peggy barked while making frantic hand gestures, "You're too intense all the time and I am sick and tired of picking up your slack, too!" Peggy breathed out sharply, glad that she had finally told Tess her true feelings and turned on her heel to leave.

Tess latched herself on to Peggy's arm and said, rather dumbly as Peggy had not yet left the room, "Come back here!" She felt the smooth sleeve of Peggy's robe slip through her grasp as she went off to God knows where.

Panicking that her night to win Shane's heart was slowly circling the drain, Tess faced Ella, hoping beyond hope that she, too, would not leave her.

Tess's heart sank as Ella shot a finger into her face and yelled, "Don't worry about me; do it yourself! I'm done!" As Ella was about run from the cabin, she thought of something, about-faced back to her former friend, and shouted, "BTW, your lip gloss is sooooo not glossy anymore!" Tess was left standing with her mouth agape as the last of the people she thought of as her friends stalked away into the dusk.

0o0

She had been walking in a huff for close to ten minutes before Ella was aware she'd made her way into the woods surrounding camp and did not know where she was. Ella was confused by new places which often happens to someone with her IQ, so it was no wonder she was in her current predicament. She sat down beneath a tree so as not to get even more lost with the realization that everyone in camp was at Final Jam and nobody would even notice she was gone until after the big camper sing-a-long.

A chill ran down Ella's spine and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms hoping to prevent the unusually cool summer night from giving her goose bumps. Goose bumps always made her look fat.

As the last of the sun slipped behind the horizon and the forest became swathed in absolute darkness, Ella's mind went back to the argument she and Peggy had with Tess. It's not that Ella hated Tess, quite the contrary, Tess was one of her best friends. She could still remember the day she first came to Camp Rock and Tess offered her a seat at the special VIP table when she saw that she had nobody else to sit with. No, what Ella hated was what Tess had _become. _Ever since her mom won that first Grammy, Tess started believing she was better than everyone else and that everyone's musical abilities were inferior to her own. Ella wished everything could go back to before TJ Tyler was famous and Tess helped Ella differentiate between ice cream and frozen custard (ice cream has more air in it.)

_That's the trouble with wishing, though_, she thought miserably, _it doesn't fix anything outside fairy tales_.

While all this was running laps through her head, a burly stranger approached from behind.

If Ella had been one to take in her surroundings and notice things going on around her, she might have notice the blood speckled in the leaves near her. She might have also noticed that these droplets of blood led to a larger puddle of blood which had formed below the grisly remains of a camp worker who was dangling vicariously from a tree with a canoe paddle protruding from his chest. Of course if Ella had taken the time to notice all this, she might still be with us. But Ella was never one to process the going ons around her, so she did not notice the leaves or the blood or the puddle or the body and so she is not here with us today.

Ella was expecting a chip in her pink nail polish when she heard the snap of twig behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that someone had finally acknowledged her absence and had come looking for her.

"About time someone showed up!" she snapped irritably as she looked around the tree's trunk, "I thought I was going to be here for ho-" Ella's rant was cut off as she saw that the person behind her was not from camp at all.

"W-who are you?" she questioned as she took in his ratty clothes and large boots, stained with mud and what she prayed was ketchup.

The man did not answer, but rather took an awkward lurch closer to Ella.

Ella stood quickly and began backing up deeper into the woods. The large man was all of three good yards away from her and she wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.

"M-my dad is v-very important and h-he'll give you anything y-you want as long as you d-don't h-hurt me," she stammered as she felt her back brush up against another tree trunk.

Again the man gave no reply and in two long strides, he closed the gap between himself and the small girl.

Ella opened her mouth, ready to deliver the piercing scream she held in her lungs, when the tall stranger raised his hand high above his head and arced his arm downward until the rusty hatchet he found in the camp maintenance tool shed connected with the girl's skinny neck and a scarlet geyser rained over his chest.

Ella's mom was always telling her that she'd lose her head if it wasn't attached to her neck. Of course, when Ella's mom always told her this, she meant it in a metaphorical sense and by no means ever imagined a situation in which her daughter would actually lose her head.

As Ella felt the edge of the knife tear through her throat, her mother's words rang in her ears and with her last moments of life, she finally grasped the concept of irony.

The girl's body slumped to the ground before the behemoth's feet. Some stray drops of blood had splashed onto his shoes and he grunted disapprovingly. Momma didn't like it when he got his shoes dirty and he knew when he got home he'd get quite the tongue lashing.

The man had no time to worry about messes now, though. He had business to attend to elsewhere. The large figure roughly pulled the hatchet from the base of the tree and, as Ella's head joined her torso on the forest floor, walked out of the woods towards Final Jam and all the other campers.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own.

So far Final Jam had been going swimmingly. Aside from Tess's break down in the middle of her performance, everything else was wonderful. No one even noticed that Ella was missing from her act…

Peggy was ready to go on, guitar in hand. She never originally planned on doing a solo or anything, but her recent confrontation with Tess had given her a new found confidence and strength and she figured it was time everyone knew her for what she was, Margaret Dupree, and not whom she hung out with.

"Well, it looks like we are basically finished with the-" Uncle Brown was about to announce the end of Final Jam and declare a winner when Dee La Duke, the camp's flighty and often scatterbrained owner, ran up behind him and delivered a scrap of paper and whispered something into his ear.

"Oh, what's this? It seems we have a last minute entry here. Just hold tight and give a warm round o' applause for Margaret Dupree!" Brown spread his arms wide as dozens of hands joined together in a thunderous storm.

Peggy nervously stepped out on stage. The neck of her guitar was slick with sweat and she was having some trouble keeping her hold on it.

Just as she had opened her mouth to sing, a small hunched man ran from the back of the room, arms waving madly and screaming garbled gibberish.

"Stop… show! Stop! Danger! Incredible… danger!" the man shouted between breaths.

Uncle Brown made his way to the center of the stage the same time the man did. He gave the figure, now panting with his hands on his knees, a quizzical look before addressing him, "What're you talking about, Collin? What sort of danger is there?"

Collin, a maintenance man who wasn't terribly good at his job and was about two days away from getting the can, raised his head and stared into Brown's eyes for a moment before answering him.

"_He's _back, sir. A girl and a worker, in the woods. I had Peter search the grounds for him, but I haven't heard from him for ten minutes." Collin put his head back down and continued taking deep, shaky breaths.

Uncle Brown's face went a deathly pale and he wiped his mouth with a quivering hand. The entire audience was silent, not sure if they, too, should be panicked or if this was somehow part of Peggy's act.

Finally, Shane stood up and spoke, "Uncle Brown," his meek voice seemed ten times louder in the quiet, "what's going on?"

Uncle Brown snapped up and surveyed the room quickly before answering, "Everyone, to the cafeteria, hurry now. We haven't got any time at all." The people didn't budge, looking at Brown dumbly.

"I said MOVE!" Brown shouted and parents, campers, workers, and the like shuffled from their seats and got to the nearest exit, Peggy, whose sweaty palms had become unbearable, dropped her guitar, leaped off stage, and lead the way.

Rather than leaving with the rest of the camp, Shane Grey hung back, eager to find out what was happening from his only uncle. As he approached Camp Rock's second in command, he caught snippets of the heated conversation Brown was having with the camp worker.

"You're absolutely positive, Collin? You sure you're not just having a bad trip?"

"Oh, now, Mister Brown, I quit the bad stuff ages ago. Yes, I remember this clear as day in me mind. I was searchin' for a rake for the leaves when I came across a clearin' in the woods. Grisly sight, it was. My stomach couldn't handle it. I ran back here right after." Collin's eyes darted back and forth dizzyingly, like he was watching a tennis match on Brown's face.

"Uncle Brown," Shane made his presence known before joining the two. He wasn't sure if they knew he had heard everything, but right now it seemed best to not let on, "what's going on? Who is _he _and why are you sending everyone out when Final Jam is almost finished?" Shane didn't realize this, but the more questions he asked, the more he cocked his head to the side. By the time he finished his interrogation, his head was at a sharp angle and pains were beginning to travel up and down his neck.

Brown Cessario clapped a clammy hand down on Shane's shoulder and laughed tensely, "Nothing's going on, my boy. Right as rain everything is. Now, why don't you go join the others in the cafeteria while I look around here and make sure no one was left behind, yeah? You can sing 'em a song, if you'd like." He gave Shane a wink then playfully pushed him towards the exit.

Shane gave Uncle Brown a suspicious look then left the auditorium. As soon as he was sure Shane was not listening at the door, Brown turned toward Collin, who was taking a swig from a rust-covered flask, and told him to make sure everyone was out of the building safely.

"What you want me to do afta that, sir?" Collin asked, already drunk from a previous visit with a Mr. Jack Daniels.

"Burn it. Burn this whole damn place to the ground then call the police. The less places he has to hide, the better. And for God's sake, Collin, don't let the children know, do I make myself clear?" By this time, Brown had Collin by the shirt collar and was shaking him slightly.

The toxic tone in his employer's voice took Collin out of his drunken stupor and he nodded, frightened, "Yessir, as you wish."

Brown let go of the man's shirt and did his best to regain his composure, "Good. I'm going to go calm the parents and kids." Uncle Brown turned and with one last look back at Collin said, "If none of us make it out tonight, I want you to know you were a terrible worker and never garnished any respect from anyone."

"Thank you, sir," was all Collin could think to say to the departing Brown.

0o0

While all the pandemonium was happening onstage and in the audience, Tess was hiding in a dark alcove, crying and cursing her mother.

"Can't even turn off her phone for her only child's performance," Tess wiped her nose on the back of her hand, a disgusting habit her mother tried her hardest to discourage. "She'll pay for that, making me look like a loser in front of Shane Grey and costing me Final Jam," Tess tried to contain the sobs that threatened to escape her throat, but failed.

As her shoulders shook and tears flooded her eyes, a muscular presence entered the back exit of the auditorium.

"You know, she's never even told me she was proud of me," she cried to no one in particular.

The beast, ax in hand and ready to kill, heard Tess's sniffling and turned to his new prey.

Tess wiped her eyes with the hem of her shirt, "The maids have been more of a mom to me than she has! Reading me stories, kissing me goodnight. Is affection too much to ask for from your own mom?" Tess practically screamed, her sadness dissolving into anger.

The man took slow, deliberate steps toward Tess's hiding spot, readying his weapon.

Tess stopped short as she realized she couldn't hear anyone onstage or in the crowd.

"Are they done already?" she asked as she crawled out from the small crook. "Can't even come get me for We Rock, some friends," she grumbled.

Collin ran backstage just then, gasoline can in hand, colliding with Tess and nearly knocking the girl down.

"Oi! I'm sorry! Didn't watch my stepping there," he began apologizing profusely.

"Darn well better be!" Tess huffed. "Do you know how much this outfit cost? And what are you doing with that?" Tess pointed a finger at the gas can and scrunched her nose.

"Oh, I was just preparin' t-" Collin's explanation was cut off, however, as he looked over Tess's shoulder and saw the burly figure with the hatchet coming closer. Collin dropped his can, gas sloshing to the ground, and stared at the approaching danger.

"Just what are you looking at?" Tess didn't like it when people just stopped talking mid conversation and looked behind her at the man with the knife.

Tess screamed and tried running past Collin. Collin, being ever the gentlemen, shoved Tess towards the monster and shouted, "Take 'er, you sonovabitch! I'm not the one yer wantin'! She wronged ya!"

Once the words escaped his lips, Collin high tailed it out of the auditorium, stopping only once to light a match and throw it over his head. He heard a whoosh as the building caught fire and didn't stop running until he reached the cafeteria.

Meanwhile, Tess was struggling to escape the killer's iron grip. As she wriggled her arm around in his hand she became aware that the flesh caught in the man's hand was tearing from her body.

"Lemme GO!" she pleaded.

The masked man took a hold of Tess's neck and pinned her against a wall. He saw shock flicker across her face, but that shock quickly turned to fear.

"Don't hurt me!" Tess screamed, but before she could beg any further, the man swung his hatchet at her face and landed it square between her eyes.

The man pulled the cleaver from Tess's head and continued to hack at the poor girl until nothing remained but her splintered bones and the pretty charm bracelet from her mother.

The brute stepped over the girl's body and made to go onstage, but soon found that the entire front room was engulfed in flames with a trail of fire leading to the gas can at his feet. The man turned and left the way he came, moving as rapidly as his large feet would carry him.

Once outside, he saw a building, a building that had noise emitting from it and lights on inside…


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Sars for late update. I've been on vacation.

"As I told you previously, there is no need to panic. There was a wiring problem and it posed a minor risk for us, but we're all okay now," Brown did his best to assuage the crowd. He had dealt with a situation like this before. The summer of '94 had been a bloody one for the camp, but luckily, the only ones who to survive were himself, Dee, Collin, and a small boy who suffered from nightmares so severe afterwards, he had been committed to a state hospital. The less survivors, the less chance there was of the camp's secret getting out.

_Nobody suspects a thing and everyone is happy. As long as everyone is in the dark, there will be no need to worry,_ Brown thought as parents and children chattered aimlessly in a dull din. _Collin and I can take care of this, we have before. _

Just as Brown was thinking this, Collin slipped into the room, sweaty and out of breath.

Collin wondered grimly how many more times he'd have to run tonight. By no means was he an old man, but years of mixing cough medicine with assorted liquors had taken a toll on his health and ability to retain breath for long periods of time.

"Have you tried the phone lines yet?" questioned Brown as he approached.

Before he could answer 'no', Dee walked up, chewing on a thumb nail. "I have, and they don't work. I even tried the old ham radio, but have gotten nothing yet. Dammit, you two, I thought he was taken care of for good." Dee eyed both the men angrily.

"With all due respect, Dee, we're dealin' with somethin' that was never meant to be dealt with in the first place," Collin said while staring at his scuffed shoes. He made it a point to never look Dee in the eyes for ever since he found out what she had done to obtain Camp Rock, he had it in his mind that she was some sort of evil Medusa type who could kill him with a wink.

Dee's brows rushed together over her nose in a sharp angle and she opened her mouth, ready to give some sort of smart remark, when a mother screamed shrilly.

"That building is on fire!" exclaimed a skinny father.

"Why, that's the one we were just in!" added another.

The crowd exploded into an uproar as the auditorium exploded into flames.

"We could have all died!"

"You said that the risk was minor!"

"What kinda place you running here, Brown?"

Dee raised her hands to quiet the crowd. "Everyone, please! As you can see the minor risk just went up to a serious risk, but we're all okay, right? No one's hurt and we got everyone out of the building just fine."

Collin cleared his throat nervously at this last remark and bowed his chin even further to his chest.

"How can you be sure you got everyone out? I haven't seen my daughter since she performed!" TJ Tyler cried out before returning to her call with her agent.

"I haven't seen my daughter at all!" trilled Ella's mom.

As the parents returned to their clamor, Mitchie watched Shane who was in turn watching his uncle.

"Why don't you go talk to him? I'm sure he'd listen even if he didn't get to hear you sing," suggested Caitlyn, gently. As mad as she had been at Mitchie for ditching her for Tess, she still didn't like seeing her down and out over a boy.

"You think so?" Mitchie perked up a bit at this encouragement.

"Of course," Caitlyn lied.

Mitchie thanked her friend for the advice and sought out Shane to explain herself. She felt really good about the conversation they were going to have as Shane seemed like a reasonable person who would respond well to the silly dilemma she had had about lying.

"Go away," Shane snapped irritably as she approached.

"But, Shane, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was I--"

"You what? Lied? Or got caught lying? I'm trying to figure something out right now so if you could just…" Shane made a shooing motion with his fingers and turned his attention back to Brown.

Mitchie put her hands on her hips and exhaled sharply. No way was she going to let some tight, white pants wearing boy get rid of her so rudely. "No, what I was _trying_ to say is I'm sorry for making you distrust me, but since you have to get an attitude I guess I'll just go." Mitchie pivoted around to leave when Shane grabbed her upper arm.

"No, wait; I was being a jerk just now," Shane began.

"I'll say," mumbled Mitchie under her breath.

Shane punched her arm playfully then scooted to make room on the bench he was sitting. It had always been easy for him to forgive people, especially if those people were packing in the chest area.

"So, what are you trying to figure out?" questioned Mitchie, happy that she and Shane were once again on friendly terms.

"This whole night my uncle has been acting… odd. Ever since that worker interrupted Final Jam, he's kept looking out the windows and checking the locks on the doors. It's like he's expecting someone to show up…" Shane's voice wavered as he looked back at Brown for some sort of clue as to what was troubling him.

"Oh," replied Mitchie, dispassionately. She never really liked mysteries. Her mother tried getting her to read a Nancy Drew story once ("She has a friend named George! You'll like it!"), but she put the book down after Nancy got kidnapped the second time. She was hoping Shane had been trying to solve some sort of riddle. Riddles were easy. She liked riddles.

"Yeah, so I think--" Shane was cut off as the shattering of glass followed by a man's yells were heard.

"Help! Help! I'm being taken!" Poor Jason was being dragged out a window by an arm that was twice the size one of his thighs.

Jason thrashed his legs wildly while both Shane and Brown bounded their way to where Nate was trying his hardest to pull Jason back into the room.

The three began a tug-of-war with the arm as more men joined the struggle to save Jason. Jason, meanwhile, turned a bluish color from having his wind pipe obstructed by the strongest arm he had ever felt.

A red bubble popped at Jason's lips and thin streams of blood began trailing out of the corner of his mouth. Try as they might, the collaborative efforts of most the fathers in the cafeteria could not pull Jason out of the arm's grasp and, after a series of sickening cracks and tears, the men dragged the headless body of the Connect Three member through the window.

Screams sounded around the room and several women fainted at the sight of the bleeding form.

Shane, colorless in face, stared at his friend's corpse and, with an eerily calm voice, asked, "Uncle Brown, what was that?"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I haven't been the best updater. I'm sorry.

Shane's uncle took one of the white and yellow checkered sheets that the camp used as a table cloth and gently draped it over the form of Jason. When red stains began to seep through the fabric, he laid another dark blue cloth over the first one and gently nudged Jason's appendages beneath them with the toe of his shoe.

Parents began shifting away from windows toward the center of the room, not speaking, only tightening the hold on their children as Brown sat down on a picnic bench and buried his face in his hands with a sigh. An eternity seemed to have passed before he looked up again and when he did, it looked as though he had aged ten years in the past five minutes.

"Shane, what did I tell you about how this camp came to be?" Brown asked, not looking at Shane, but through him.

Shane's forehead crinkled in confusion. "You said you bought if off an old science professor who had turned it into a space camp. Uncle, why does this matter? Jason is dead and we could be next if we don't stop that," he stopped abruptly when he saw that his uncle's shoulders were shaking with a grim laughter.

"Could be? No, no, not _could be_. Will be. I will be, Dee will be, most of this room will be and it is all our fault." Brown looked up, his vision boring into Shane's. "I have not been honest with you. With anyone and it's about time I told. I'd like to have a clear conscience before he comes for me."

"STOP IT!" Dee screamed suddenly. "Just stop! I will not marinate in a jail just because you've had a change of heart." She grabbed a stoker from the fireplace set and began her way towards Brown Cessario all the while trilling sharply.

"I've always known you were the weak link, Cessario. You're not going to ruin this for me! None of you are!" She raised the stoker high above her head as if to beat Brown with it, but before she could get close to enough to him, Collin stepped out from the crowd and pointed the small revolver he always kept on his person at her.

"You make one more move, she-witch, and I'll blow your bloody brains all over this place."

Parents, still in shock at seeing a man beheaded, gasped and pulled their children even closer at the site of the gun. The children, who, normally, would have struggled under the hold of their parents, buried their faces into the crooks of arms and against chests.

Dee lowered the fire poker, ending the Mexican stand off with Collin. Collin did not lower his weapon, but waited for Brown to continue his story.

"Thank you, Collin," Brown said tightly and cleared his throat. "I --_we -- _have not been honest with you and I'd like to stop that. This camp did used to be a space camp, but we did not purchase it. It wasn't even given to us as a gift. Dee and I did an awful thing to obtain Camp Rock and tonight we are reaping what we sowed."

The crowd leaned forward collectively, partly to hear the story better and partly to get further from the windows and doors. Mitchie grabbed Shane's hand and he squeezed it lightly.

"Back when Dee came to me with the idea for a place for kids to hone their musical abilities," Brown continued, "I thought it was a wonderful. We both had worked together previously at a private school of fine arts, but were disgusted with the lack of heart in which the students were taught. We collaborated and Camp Rock was born, but we needed a place to set it up. That's where the science teacher came in.

"Having both quit our jobs, neither one of us had the means to purchase a camp especially such a nice one as this, but we hoped that the old man would understand that he couldn't keep up his camp forever and sell to us a reasonable price. When he didn't, Dee and I took up residence in the area and found jobs and began raising money to buy the camp. That's when we heard the stories.

"We were in Joel's Diner, having lunch and counting our savings. With the mortgage Dee put on her house and the money my father sent me, we had just barely enough to buy half the camp. As we were discussing how to get money for the rest, a man came over and asked us if we were talking about 'ol' Crysta Lake.'"

Brown Cessario took on a misty look as his mind went back to that moment in the restaurant.

"You folks talkin' 'bout the ol' Crysta' Lake?" the grizzled man asked around a splintered toothpick.

Dee and Brown exchanged a brief look before addressing the man. "No," said Dee, "we were talking about Professor Simon's Space Camp. By Lake Minnow."

The man chuckled lightly while clawing at his beard with a gnarled hand. "I 'posed they'd go an' rename it. Afta what happen to it, I woulda done the same." The man's face went grave and he shook his head solemnly. "Bad thins happen down theya. Bad thins," he drawled slowly in an accent of undeterminable origin.

Brown and Dee exchanged another glance, wary of the old man. "What sort of things?" questioned Brown.

"Y'all must not of 'eard the stories. People 'roun' heyah don' lak talkin' 'bout it much on count uh the superstitions. But I talk 'bout it. Gotta. Fine folk such as yoselfs need ta know."

The duo were no longer wary of this sun bleached, bent old man, but were now a bit frightened of him and his tales about their dream camp.

"Um, what's wrong with it? Gas leak or loose floorboards or something?"

The man was taken aback and he sputtered indignantly. "L-loose floorboards? Lawd, no! That place iz solid as rock. Helped build it muhself. Nah, nah, what I mean iz, theya be some bad juju at that camp. There'z somethin' theya that the Lawd did not create."

He sat down heavily in their booth, propping a battered wooden cane against the side of the table, and sipped from Dee's coffee cup without permission, earning himself an aggravated glare.

He continued with his story, not minding that he had not been invited into the conversation and was not wanted at the table. "Ya see, a long while 'go, 'bout fourty yeas, tha' camp use ta be jus' a summah camp for the lil ones. None of this space adventua crap," he snorted distastefully and spit into a water glass close to him.

"The waz this one boy, Jack? No, it was Jason. Lil Jason Voorhees. Pamela's only chile. He was an ugly thin' and none the too brigh', but a good boy. Apple uh Pam's eye.

"One day, lil Jason iz in the lake swimming' all by hisselfs, and I do mean all by hisselfs. No lifegaud 'round ore counselors, nuthin. Po' Jason didn' know how ta swim and no one waz 'round ta watch him, so he done drown in tha lake and warn't found till suppa time. Turn out the counselors that were 'posed ta be watchin' 'im were, well, makin' a mess of the sheets. Anyway, Mizzes Voorhees waz devastated, but didn' have any money ore nuthin' so she couldn' sue ore anythan'. The camp closed a yea later and the site waz abandoned fo' a while."

The man paused and took a soiled handkerchief from his breast pocket and coughed vigorously into it. Brown waited until this fit was over before speaking.

"So, is that it? Some teens were having sex and a kid drowned? That's hardly any reason for a whole town to not discuss a camp for four decades."

The man looked Brown dead in the eyes until Brown was forced to advert his gaze.

"Boy," he said, "that ain't even the half uh it"

"Thirty yeas later, some people tried fixin' the place up ogain, but Mizzes Voorhees came back and killet off the whole lot uh 'em 'cept one and was killet herselfs. Thas when folks started callin' it Camp Blood. Two monts later the las' survivor, Alice her name waz, disappeared and five yeas afta that anotha group uh counselors waz murdered. There waz no Pamela to take the blame this time."

The story had given Dee goose bumps on the back of her neck and she shivered. "Who killed them?" she asked quietly.

"Why Jason uh course! Who do ya think would do it?" the man shouted with a pound of his fist. Several people in the diner looked to see who was causing the commotion in the corner, but looked away uninterested after seeing that it was only Crazy Ted.

Brown, never one to believe in anything supernatural, rolled his eyes and raised his brows at Crazy Ted. "But Jason is dead. He drowned in the lake."

Crazy Ted laughed airily. "Ah, but he wazn', boy. He waz the undead. Returned from the grave to protect what waz his own."

"Yeah, right," Brown snorted. "I stopped enjoying ghost stories when I was twelve."

Contempt flashed across Crazy Ted's face. "Ain't no ghost story! Search the newspapers ore the city records! Why yo think no one talk 'bout it? They fea he migh' come back any day if they speak uh 'im."

"Wait, wait, wait," Brown shook his head gently, "if he haunts that camp ground, why do they have a camp there now? Shouldn't it be sectioned off or burned to the ground?"

"Ah, but thas the good part o' the story. Afta Jason killet the O'Briens in theya store, the town went inta riot and hunted 'im down. We got 'im fo good this time. He iz as dead as a door nail." Crazy Ted took a hand rolled cigarette from a hollowed out space in his cane and puffed away at it joyfully. "We buried 'im, though. Don' know why, can' say he deserved it, but we did."

"So, this Jason has everyone terrified… And if anyone found out he had come back…"

"That Camp Professor Minnow Whatever would be empty faster than you could blink." Crazy Ted did not see the gleam in Dee's eyes as she began formulating a plan and he took another sip from her mug while nodding.

Brown sighed as he came back to the present. "Later that week, Dee and I found Jason's grave along the shore of the lake. We dug him up and during a bad lightening storm, somehow resurrected him. Dee's plan worked. The camp cleared out after Professor Simon's corpse was found in the canoe shed. We didn't even have to pay for the camp. The city practically gave it to us. Jason only came back once after that, and we thought we had gotten rid of him for good, but I guess nothing is ever gone for good."

Nobody breathed as Brown finished. Collin lowered his gun to his side and Shane squeezed Mitchie's hand even tighter.

"Uncle," Shane's throat was dry, making his voice slightly husky, "how do we stop him? How do we kill Jason?"

As Brown Cessario opened his mouth to answer, he, along with most of the room, noticed for the first time the heavy smoke that had been filling the cafeteria. The fire from the auditorium had traveled to the small room the whole camp was now occupying.

"Everyone, get down on the floor!" Cessario shouted and the coughing crowd fell to their knees. Brown crawled to the nearest door and reached for the door knob with his eyes shut, the smoke having left them unbearably dry.

The large form of Jason appeared in the door after Brown wretched it open.

"NO!" shouted Shane as he saw Jason shove a zebra print umbrella completely through his uncle's torso and then proceed to open it so that Brown could not pull it out.

Flames licked at all four walls of the room and the people inside, disoriented and blind, stumbled about heedlessly. Support beams, weakened by the fire, crumbled and the building began coming down around everyone.


End file.
